Himalayan Notebook

A hand-stitched hardback artist book of forty-four full color collages by multidisciplinary artist Marilyn Stablein made with vintage ephemera she collected in India and Nepal during an book arts residency in the countercultural sixties. The book is a collector's item, signed by the award-winning author and artist, numbered and limited to an edition of 150 copies.
Himalayan Notebook is part of a vernacular series of time and place based autobiographical visual narratives composed of vintage Himalayan ads, trivia, pop culture, folklore, maps, woodblock prints, and handmade Nepalese lokta paper the artist collected. Three of Marilyn's books of traveler’s tales and memoirs, also about India, Nepal & Tibet: Houseboat on the Ganges (a mail art epistolary memoir hand written on international aerograms); Sleeping in Caves and Night Travels to Tibet, include her drawings, paintings and photographs.

Marilyn grew up on the west coast south of San Francisco in the sixties. She frequented North Beach coffee shops, Ferlinghetti’s City Lights bookstore, as well as Asian museums, markets, and film festivals. On the road at eighteen, inspired by Allen Ginsberg, Gary Snyder and Joanne Kyger's travels in India, she hitch-hiked overland to Nepal and India arriving in 1966. She studied Tibetan literature, tantra, painting and Asian book arts for seven years.

Marilyn's mixed media work focuses on poetry, prose, performance art, installation, collage and book arts which she uses to explore visual narrative (autobiographical collage), travelog and memoir. Her sculptural artist books may house cultural artifacts, ephemera and writing. Her interests include alternative and small press international collaborations, Beats, Fluxus, mail art, countercultural movements, collage and travel. She loves to peruse used bookstores and second hand shops for found material. Author of 17 books, her small press limited editions and artist books are in private and public collections. She is based in Portland, Oregon.